Michelle Obama

Choose people who lift you up.

If we want our daughters to dream bigger than we did we still have work to do.

It’s hard to have it all. And if you’re compromising through one phase of your journey, you’re not giving it all up, you’re compromising for that phase

My daughters are the heart of my heart and the center of my world.

I hate diversity workshops. Real change comes from having enough comfort to be really honest and say something very uncomfortable.

The arts are not just a nice thing to have or to do if there is free time or if one can afford it. Rather, paintings and poetry, music and fashion, design and dialogue, they all define who we are as a people and provide an account of our history for the next generation.

“From birth to age 18, a girl needs good parents, from 18 to 35 she needs good looks, from 35 to 55 she needs a good personality, and from 55 on she needs cash.

I’m attracted to films that have strong female characters because there are strong female characters in my life.

There needs to be more variety on television so young girls growing up don’t feel pressured to look one specific way. Tall, thin, curvy, short, whatever you are, you are beautiful.

A man told me that for a woman, I was very opinionated. I said ‘For a man, you’re kind of ignorant.

What gets me is how many women – young women – give up their power and their sense of self. Thinking they’re going to get more out of life if they take off their clothes and objectify themselves, instead of functioning on the principle that they’re smart and capable, that you can be an actress and not be on the covers of T&A magazines. I’m flabbergasted by how many legitimate actresses do that. It blows my mind.

Have you watched Snow White lately? I get real funky about the classics; I don’t like (my sons) watching it. It’s totally sexist, misogynistic – she’s cleaning for seven dwarfs. There’s nothing wrong with a woman who chooses to stay at home with her family, it’s a hard-ass job, but it’s the way it’s spoken about.

Today, be the basass girl you were too lazy to be yesterday.

For me, as a feminist, I would say it should be up to the woman to decide if she wants to be a mom … If she wants to go out and work, have a career other than being a mom, then she should be able to do that as well.

It’s pretty clear that if men were having babies we’d have different policies.

I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I always knew the woman I wanted to be.

I do respect them; I have great respect for women. In fact, one of the reasons ‘The Apprentice’ was such a successful show for so many years, the audience of women was fantastic.

We can never be complacent and think that we’ve arrived now as women. Because I hear this from young women. Some of you young women who aren’t feeling the pains that many of our predecessors have felt – you think, well, there aren’t any problems, women’s rights, we’ve got this all figured out, I’m already equal, I’m good – I’m just like, oh, just you wait, you’ll feel it. So the work continues.

Girls should never be afraid to be smart.

And to all of the little girls who are watching this, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams.

The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerance. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors, and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance.